Emersum Oyster Stout is available on draft throughout March at all three Jax Fish House locations, in Boulder, Denver and in Ft. Collins, as well as in the Odell Brewing Co. taproom in Ft. Collins.

Jax's Boulder location, 928 Pearl St., will host an oyster-eating contest on March 18 and a four-course dinner featuring Emersum oysters and Emersum Oyster Stout on March 21. Visit oystermonth.com for details.

A portion of proceeds from the sale of Emersum Oysters goes to the Barcat Foundation, which helps promote sustainable oyster fishing. Additionally, 10 cents from every oyster shucked during oyster month is donated to a local nonprofit.

Oysters and stout beer are a classic pairing with roots in 18th-century English pubs, where both were plentiful commodities.

But a stout brewed with oysters? Now that's just weird. I prefer shellfish with my beer, thank you, not in it.

So it was with understandable apprehension that I cracked open a sample of Emersum Oyster Stout, a collaborative project between Odell Brewing Co. and Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar. A small-batch beer brewed with 25 pounds of fresh oysters, shells and all, I expected it to smell strongly of the sea, like a briny brew that had been plucked from the depths by some beer-hunting explorer.

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I was greeted instead by the sweet smell of chocolate malts and roasted barley, with maybe a hint of brine lurking in the shadows (or was that my imagination?). I took a hesitant sip and was pleasantly surprised.

This isn't some sort of liquefied oyster essence. It's a straightforward stout that's meant to showcase and contrast the delicate flavor components of the oysters, much like the alpha acids found in beer compliment an oyster's fatty proteins when consumed together.

Despite its thick, chestnut-brown appearance, the beer has a light and silky mouth feel with flavors of dry chocolate, toasted malt and a slight salty minerality on the finish.

I enjoyed a pint of Emersum Oyster Stout on its own, and I'd gladly belly up to the bar and pair it with a platter of freshly shucked oysters on the half shell.

Jax representatives approached Odell about brewing a batch of oyster beer to celebrate Oyster Month at Jax, which lasts through March; as well as to mark the opening of a new Jax location in Fort Collins; and as a unique way to debut Emersum Oysters, a proprietary variety of oyster farmed exclusively for Jax by Rappahannock River Oysters.

Emersum oysters (say it slowly, as in "'Em er sum good oysters") are "sweet and creamy, and not overly salty," says Jax Executive Manager Adam Reed. "They're meaty and buttery like a Kumamoto, but not too big."

But would the oyster do well in a beer? There was only one way to find out.

"My first thought was, 'fish and beer? That sounds strange,'" says brewer Brent Cordle, who manages the pilot system at Odell. "But (Boston-based) Harpoon Brewery makes an oyster stout, and a couple of other breweries make one as well. You really don't know until you try it."

After conducting some research and making sure that it was safe to brew a beer with oysters, Cordle put together a malt-based recipe with low hop bitterness that would let the oysters shine through.

"We didn't want it to taste like pungent oysters," he says. "We were going for a more subtle approach that would pick up some of that salty brininess that oysters have."

Last January, the Jax team met with Odell brewers to brew a pilot of batch of Emersum Oyster Stout. They added 25 pounds of oysters in all, including shucked oysters in the mash, shells and all, and another addition of whole oysters during the boil.

Reed took things a step further and tried some of the oyster meat after it had been through the mash.

"They had definitely released their oyster flavor by then," he says. "They were pretty much flavorless."

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